31/08/2021

Part 2 of The Emperor's Dragon. If you are wanting canon time or lots of action, then I suggest you come back for Part 3. Fledgling will cover Middle School but is not going to feature Izuku running around as a supervillain, super hero or vigilante. In my world view, he's still too young and AFO would notice him slipping out at night.

For those who didn't or don't want to read part 1, here is a very short summary. When Izuku is 4 and a half years old, Hisashi, who is really All For One, takes him and leaves Inko. All For One raises Izuku with Tomura, making sure that Izuku sees the world for as it really is: cruel and petty to those who it deems unsuitable. Izuku takes those lessons to heart, especially when All Might injuries his Dad. Izuku does have some friends though Ochaco, Hitoshi and Himiko. Tomura and Izuku have an alliance together and fetch a regeneration quirk to heal AFO which gets him back to about canon health but the two boys don't really like each other. Tomura sees Izuku as a threat to his position, even though Tomura is the one who has the name Shigaraki and Izuku would be friends with Tomura but the age gap means that during Part 1, they were just not at the same developmental levels.

The fic ends off with All Might returning to hero work after his battle with AFO, AFO looking for a way to be more than a Mr Potato Head, Izuku trying to show Ochaco the truth of the world and Hitoshi helping Izuku realise that changing society will take more than one event.

The Emperor's Dragon
Fledgling 01

"You can't keep doing this," Mirai said tiredly.

"Doing what?" Toshinori asked, though he knew exactly what his sidekick was referring to.

Mirai glared at him, his yellow eyes were particularly piercing. "Yes, you saved them," he jumped ahead in the conversation. "But then you spent over an hour coughing up blood. Chiyo had to come and heal you."

"So what was I meant to do, just leave them to die? I couldn't do that," the Number One Hero countered fiercely.

"You could have called in back up. You could have distracted the villains. You didn't have to rush in and fight them! You still haven't fully recovered!" Mirai growled. "You could have called me!" He added. He would have thought of something.

"No," Toshinori rejected that course of action. He shook his head. "No, I could not have left them. They need a pillar," he stated softly.

Sasaki huffed and then rose. Toshinori watched as his sidekick came close and then slapped his arm. It was a shock when the next thing he saw was glowing purple eyes. His sidekick twitched and All Might expected him to come out of the vision quickly. He didn't though. He kept twitching and from the length of time Mirai was remaining in his quirk, Toshinori knew he was looking at as much of his future as he could.

It didn't matter.

He knew he was injured. He knew he was on borrowed time now and that just meant he had to step up his work. He had to be there for people. And he had to find a successor. Just because All For One was gone, didn't mean that One For All had to die.

He had time yet. He could search for the perfect successor and while he was doing that, he would still carry on his work.

Mirai twitched again. The purple rings and patterns in his eyes expanded and contracted as he searched through the future.

Toshinori waited. It would be nice if Mirai could see his successor but he doubted the man would tell him even if he did.

He twitched again. He really was looking into as much of the future as he could. All Might knew what every twitch meant. It meant that Mirai was shifting his focus, searching through years, or events stretching into the future.

All Might got up and gently pushed Mirai down into the chair he was sitting in. While his quirk was active, his sidekick was conscious but when he got involved in his vision, it was as if he was in a trace. As such, he could be moved.

It looked like Mirai was going to use the full hour of his quirk so after settling him more comfortably, he noted the time and picked up his laptop. He had paperwork to do, and just before Mirai came out of his vision, he'd make some tea.

-ted-

Izuku gasped for air as he slid down the wall onto the bench that was against it. He was training with Kurogiri with the new quirks that his Dad had given him. It was going well but he was exhausted. He had no idea Kurogiri was this fit. And the man had any number of good suggestions on how Izuku could combine his quirks.

The misty man had simply laughed off his complements, indicating that he'd spoken to his Dad about possibilities.

Izuku pulled out his phone as he tried to take deep breaths. It felt good to be doing something, even if that something was just exercising. The motion took his mind off events. But there was something he'd been meaning to do today before he began training. Kurogiri had gotten him down to the training room before he had.

Knock, knock, he sent the message with a grin. Hopefully Himiko would be awake.

Who's there?

Izuku grinned. She was awake!

Ivana, he sent back. It wasn't the best joke but it was the thought that counted.

Ivana who?

Ivana Suck Your Blood, Izuku replied.

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He snorted softly at her response. At least she liked the joke but before he could reply, he saw that Himiko was typing again.

It's not fair that All Might is back, when your Dad is still injured

Izuku's eyes widened at the statement. Hitoshi understood and Ochaco didn't quite get it. Himiko knew society wasn't good but he hadn't realised exactly how much she'd felt his pain. It's not, he typed back, but there is nothing that can be done about it for the moment.

He was beginning to understand more now of why his Dad said society needed to change, and why his dad would need his and Tomura's help to do it.

It's still not fair, she insisted.

Izuku felt warm at that. He smiled gently at his phone but before he could form a reply Kurogiri returned, his yellow eyes expectant.

Gotta go, he sent to Himiko. More training to be done!

Practice hard! Her response was almost immediate, allowing Izuku to see it before he put his phone down again and got up. After a quick drink, he was ready to go again.

-ted-

Mirai came back to himself with a gasp as his quirk deactivated. It wasn't often that he used the entire hour to see the future. Mostly he just needed a hint about something specific. The smell of tea reached his nose. He recognised the scent. It was one of the ones he had for restoration. He felt a burst of thanks towards the man who had to have put it there. And then he recognised that he was sitting. Another burst of thanks.

Sir Nighteye blinked, moistening his eyes as he shifted to pick up the tea. The movement brought the attention of All Might, who looked over at him. "You're back," he murmured, closing his laptop screen.

"I am," Mirai replied, trying to get his thoughts under control. He'd seen so much. It was always difficult when he looked that long into the future, both in time of quirk activation and in years.

"Drink up," Toshinori said.

Despite the fact they had been discussing his fitness to work an hour ago, and that Mirai didn't agree with his course of action, the Number One Hero was still caring. That was the reason he was Number One, Sasaki's mind reminded him, even as he took up the tea and sipped at it.

It wasn't cold, which meant that All Might had made it fresh, already knowing that Sir Nighteye was going to use the entire hour his quirk afforded him. The warmth spread through him but that was superficial. The herbs worked to calm him but Mirai could still feel his heart racing at what he had seen.

He sipped the tea slowly, trying to order his thoughts and for one of the few times in his life, he wanted to use his quirk again. Not on Toshinori. There'd been a spectator in All Might's life. He hadn't noticed him at first. All Might's battles always had spectators but eventually Sir Nighteye had picked him out despite the changes of hair and eye colour.

There was something in that child's eyes that stood out from the crowd. But he hadn't been present at Toshinori's death so perhaps he was just a particularly enthusiastic fanboy.

"So, what happens?" All Might asked.

"You die," slipped out before Mirai could decide what to lead with.

Yagi gave him a look. It was amused. "Everyone dies," he said sagely.

Not like that. Not as… he wasn't sure what to call what he'd seen. It felt like it was the opening move to something but what he had no idea, and with his quirk, until he knew who else might be involved, and who survived that event, he would not be able to see what All Might's death was the starting point for.

"No," Mirai shook his head. "No, no no. You don't die peacefully. It's-" he didn't want to say. It was brutal.

"So who kills me?" There was a kind of morbid curiosity with the question.

Mirai's mind pulled up the memory of the events. It was toned in that way all the memories that came from his quirk were. There was the impression of teeth. They weren't human teeth, or at least, not normal human teeth. They were pointed and sharp and by the time All Might died, they were stained with blood. They were attached to a huge creature.

"I don't know," Mirai replied. "I've never seen-" he paused. He wasn't sure if the creature was a transformed human or something else. "-it… them? Before. I didn't recognise them as human but they could be transformed."

"Everyone dies," All Might repeated.

"Not like that," Mirai insisted.

Toshinori gave him a look but then nodded. There was no point in arguing again. "What else did you see?" he asked instead.

At the question, Sir Nighteye took a deep breath, pushing All Might's death from his mind temporarily. He also pushed aside the knowledge that everything he'd ever seen had come true. "You are going to get a fan," he chuckled.

"What about a successor?"

"I wasn't focused on that, but there were several people who could be," Sir Nighteye said.

"Really?" All Might seemed happy about that fact.

He ran his mind back over what he'd seen. There weren't that many teenagers in the mix though they became more prolific near the end of Toshinori's life. In his mind's eye, he saw a progression of faces but Mirai didn't recognise any of them. Still, he knew that was a few years in the future so that wasn't surprising. "You are interacting with people of the appropriate age group," he confirmed.

Yagi nodded slowly, still pleased at that, before his expression clouded. "Did you see any evidence of him?"

"He's dead," Mirai objected. And the body was in some lab being cut up for experiments. Hardly the most dignified end.

"Did you see any evidence of him?" Toshinori repeated, his voice chillingly quiet.

"You mean his son?" Sir Nighteye asked. There had been something. Just one battle where… No, it couldn't have been All For One. He was dead. Except… Sir Nighteye knew his visions. They did not lie, and they did not change. The man Toshinori was fighting had All For One's build, his suit, his quirks… but not his face because that was covered by a black metal helmet. And Mirai didn't know what that meant. He needed time to think about that one, to pull the memory up and examine it all.

All Might just gave him a look. Mirai knew better than to say anything about it. It appeared the Number One Hero still believed it was his fault that Tsukauchi's mission had failed. He didn't reply but instead closed his eyes and looked through the memories his quirk had given him. The Number One Hero knew how his quirk worked, so knew it would take him some time to go through the memory. Sir Nighteye possessed a good memory, but part of his training had been to sharpen it so that he could recall and focus on the visions his quirk showed him and extract details others would miss.

The child had green hair and eyes. There was no one who stood out in his visions with those features. The little fan's hair colour changed frequently and his eyes were often a molten gold… which… looked remarkably like All For One's eyes.

He brought up the memories. The child wasn't really a child. Instead, he was a teen and slowly got older each fight but he never did anything more than just watch on the side lines. If he was All For One's child, surely he would have done something more?

"I'm not sure," Mirai said at length. "There's no one obvious."

At that, All Might nodded. The Number One Hero drew the same conclusions he had, that if All For One's son was going to be involved as a villain then he'd be obvious about it. "Alright," Toshinori said, leaning forward. "Let's deal with what obviously bothered you. How do I die?"

Mirai looked down for a moment, gathering his thoughts. He didn't need to look at the memories to know how it happened. "You keep working. You keep going with One For All, even with your body damaged. The damage never gets a chance to heal and keeps deteriorating. Your time as All Might gets shorter and shorter, and at some point, I'm assuming that you find a successor. But then you don't retire! Or at least it doesn't seem as if you did," Sir Nighteye made the correction.

With his quirk, he could look into the future of an individual for one hour after activation. He saw things in real time, which meant he had to focus on what was important. He'd flicked between a lot of scenes in Toshinori's life, getting a general gist for how things had worked out, all the way until the end. That he had seen in full. Just the last part though. He hadn't seen the entire battle but he'd looked around the location as much as he could and it had been empty.

The creature was all that was there. Which meant it was most likely a transformed human. A villain.

"And then?" All Might prompted.

"Someone took you out. I don't recognise them but it appears to be a mutant type or a transformation type quirk. A full transformation," Sir Nighteye emphasised. Even with quirks becoming more powerful, complete transformation ones were rare.

"Everyone dies," Toshinori repeated.

"You didn't have to," Mirai returned immediately.

Yagi gave him a questioning look. He knew how Foresight worked. He knew that Mirai couldn't have seen everything.

"You didn't have to," Mirai repeated.

"But I will," the Number One Hero said. "You've always insisted that you can't change your visions, so should I not do everything I can until that point?"

The question was damnably astute. He'd never been able to change the events he saw. Mirai trembled. That was the problem. He wanted to change this vision.

All Might gave him a smile. It was not the smile he gave the masses. This was softer, and more personal. "It's alright," he said gently. "I'll tell you something I learned in the instant he swung at me and I was swinging at him. I didn't know if I was going to survive but I realised then that death is a part of life. Death is not defeat, Mirai, death just is. If you accept it then there is nothing to be afraid of, not like he was."

"But you don't have to die. If you find a successor and then retire, you won't be in that fight."

Yagi didn't say anything to that, but Mirai heard the words anyway. He didn't know that. Not for sure, because in the hour of his vision he couldn't see everything. Mentally, Sir Nighteye shook his head. Toshinori Yagi, All Might, might have accepted his death, he hadn't.

He'd find a way to change his vision.

Just this once, he'd find a way.

-ted-

All Might may be back at work but he's still injured. Izuku is learning and... Mirai will want to look more and more into the future but, as Toshinori says, everyone dies. For him, it's just a question of if All For One has gone before him. And with Sir Nighteye seeing what could be AFO... that question isn't quite answered.

-ted-

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